We already know about NVIDIA's Kal-El project which will bring quad-core chips to phones and tablets beginning later this year, and now Qualcomm has stepped up its game as well, announcing plans for its own quad-core badassery.

I'm just going to get right to it: we could start seeing 2.5GHz quad-core Snapdragon processors powering devices sometime in early 2012. Not only that, but these new powerhouse chips will also be sporting Adreno Graphics, 3D, full 1080p, and LTE connectivity as a standard. I don't know about you, but I'll go ahead put a check in the 'impressed' box -- that is some serious silicon power, especially in the mobile space. With specs like this, we'll all be able to retire our laptops and work completely off of a tablet or smartphone with some sort of lapdock functionality.

Cameron is a self-made geek, Android enthusiast, horror movie fanatic, musician, and cyclist. When he's not pounding keys here at AP, you can find him spending time with his wife and kids, plucking away on the 6-string, spinning on the streets, or watching The Texas Chainsaw Massacre on repeat.

Comments

Darkseider

My laptop has been collecting dust since I got my Transformer. With the keyboard dock, root and an O/C kernel the thing flies and has incredible battery life. Add in some of the wonderful apps out there like Evernote, Google Docs, GMail, Adobe products and a few SSH and terminal client and I have NO NEED for a laptop. Hell if someone could build a kernel that supports CD/DVD burning of data and .iso's it would pretty much be the death knell for netbook/notebook PCs.

Praveen

I guess battery manufactures better start innovating too.. It will be crucial as these chips will be power hungry for sure

Aaron

I would say battery life would be BETTER with a more powerful processor since the phone would have to work LESS hard to do the same job.

Telanis

Congratulations, you know absolutely nothing about technology or physics.

Wam31

And yet, he's somehow right !

It's a very common thing for a new architecture to be more powerful AND less power hungry than the previous generation.

Tegra 2 was more powerful with less power consumption than Qualcomm's one core Snapdragon.
Upcoming Tegra 3 (Quad core) WILL be way more powerful than Tegra 2 (5 times, actually !) while consuming even less power...

No need to be agressive when you're obviously the one that knows nothing about technology... at least when it comes to CPU architecture.

Andrew

Android Police could start a useful trend by including power consumption data when reporting processor speeds. I am relatively well read, but I don't even know what the standard would be. Inquiring minds want to know...

Andrew

As more and more consumers switch from PC's to tablets and smartphones -- especially outside the US -- chip makers will invariably bring to bear their full arsenal of R&D resources to the mobile market. We should see not only rapidly advancing technology, but low prices from competitors fighting for market share.

Darkseider

Well said. I'm willing to wager that due to the massive migration from PC to tablets and smartphones that we may very well see the end of the traditional netbook/notebook and desktop within the next 2 to 3 years.

Not to mention that nVidia's project Denver is a 64 bit ARM implementation as well as Marvell rumored to be working on one as well. So with the mic of high end 32 bit ARM SoCs like the Cortex A9 and soon Cortex A15 and the new 64 bit ARM SoCs being developed it's easy to see the demise of the x86.

Chris

I'm not so certain. At the very least, it's unlikely that enterprises will switch entirely to the mobile sphere, especially those that rely on specialized applications or high-end computing, such as graphic design firms and game studios.

Mainstream laptops and desktops, which are not necessarily designed for gaming, may feel the squeeze, but high-end models with greater graphics horsepower will hang around. Android isn't yet ready to fully unseat Windows as a full-function PC operating system, nor is Chrome OS.

ARM may unseat x86, but I expect laptop and desktop uses to remain, since power draw is a huge limitation of ultraportable devices. Nvidia has made much about its plans to reach parity with the Xbox 360 in 2012, but what it hasn't been pointing out is that the Xbox 360 reached that point six years ago.

Gizmodo recently (yesterday?) reported on an Intel chip that would use low enough power that the laptop could run for a full day without recharge... It was even suggested it could be powered by a solar cell (*which I actually also read an Evo (I think) will be coming out with a solar charger, an hr in the sun == 20min talk time)...

If the chip in this article could use similar low power that the phone would last a day (or 2) of moderate use on a charge, and we can find a way to bump the phones storage from 8GB internal (& 32GB SD) to the terabyte range (maybe borrow the guts from the thin 2TB USB flash drives Giz reported on a week or so ago)....

Then I think I just might have to say good bye to my dear, beloved desktop... Especially if the phone comes with a webdock with a functioning CD/DVD/BR burner.

Maybe its a good think my contract isn't up until October 2012.... Samsung Nexus Galaxy Droid Prime 2, with "all the game-changing additions that were left out of ICS", NFC, solar charger, 2.5GHz quad core, 4GB RAM, 2TB internal storage + SD card (64+GB max?), plus whatever the new latest & greatest happens to become... Maybe a built in LED/laser projected keyboard so I could have a full keyboard to type on when I have it on its kick-stand....

Yes, I think I could possibly wait another 365 days to upgrade to that :)

https://plus.google.com/117702410245683101961/posts Lucian Armasu

Eh. That's misleading marketing from Intel, as always. They will get 24 hour battery life, just like they now get 12-13 hour of battery life - which is to say - they don't. But they keep promoting that with some of the notebooks/netbooks.

I promise you, you will disappointed if you wait a year on Intel's fantastic promise.

Germian

Are there no news about the Dual Core S4 (Kraid)? I once read they should arrive at Q4 2011 in phones.

https://plus.google.com/117702410245683101961/posts Lucian Armasu

"I'm just going to get right to it: we could start seeing 2.5GHz quad-core Snapdragon processors powering devices sometime in early 2012".

No, that's not possible. We'll see the *dual core* 2.5 Ghz chip from Qualcomm early 2012, not the quad core one. The quad core one will arrive in summer, at the earliest.

L boogie

Would be interesting to see how this chip is utilized in future htc devices such as incredible 3d, evo 4d, sensation 3d, jetstorm (jetstream's son), vigor 2, flyer 4g, thunderbolt 3 etc as well as other OEM devices utilizing the chip.

Zac

Depending on the manufacturing process used to make the chips this is entirely possible. But if you were to say take a 2.5 Ghz single core processor and compare it so a Quad core 2.5 Ghz processor the Quad core processor "should" be more power efficient and give off less heat. It would also be able to handle the same amount of data generating less heat and taking less time which would save energy. But if you take a 1Ghz processor and up the clock speed to 2.5Ghz yeah the battery would be drained very fast.

Vhero

Thanks for the mention on the article btw. I hope we see this kind of technology in the mainstream sooner rather than later as I get my upgrade next September and would love a powerhouse phone next time around. That kind of power has gotta eat battery life though so we need to start coming up with better battery technology no? Phones are constantly evolving over the years but we are still using the same batteries my old nokia from several years ago did.